Please do not copy or
quote from this text without acknowledging the author.

The Ritual Plot in ‘King Horn’

Move 1

Horn’s
father, King Murry, is killed by pirates

Horn is
exiled with Fikenild

STEP 1 TO
KINGDOM

Move 2

Horn is a
thrall at King Aylmer’s court

He is loved
by the king’s daughter Rymenild

Fikenild
tells the king that Horn will kill the king and

marry
Rymenild

Horn is
exiled

STEP 2

Move 3

Horn is
Goodmind at King Thurston’s court

He saves
the king from an invader and

refuses the
reward of the king’s daughter

and kingdom

FIRST
REVERSAL OF FIKENILD’S

ACCUSATION (STEP 3)

Move 4

Horn
returns to King Aylmer’s court bolder, wins

Rymenild
from her suitor and is betrothed

He declares
his innocence and his plans to win his

father’s
kingdom

STEP 4

Move 5

Horn
recovers his father’s kingdom and

becomes
king

STEP 5

Move 6

Horn
returns to King Aylmer’s court, where Fikenild is

threatening
the king and seizing Rymenild

Horn
defeats Fikenild

He marries
Rymenild

SECOND
REVERSAL OF FIKENILD’S ACCUSATION

This narrative is about the winning of kingdoms,
but we would expect an exciting account of brave enterprise and
opportunities seized. What we get is an account of a hero who fails
to seize opportunities and puts uninteresting obstacles in his own
way. If he is a prince, why pretend to be a thrall at a foreign
court, ineligible to marry the princess? Why does he not tell the
king the fate of his father? We are never told. Motivation is the
most glaring problem. It is hard to see why there is any progression
and yet there clearly is. Horn returns from exile highly effective.

I find that the plot of King Horn
progresses in steps which I call ‘moves’, each move depending on the
performance of the previous move. Two of the moves, Moves 3 and 6,
are replays of Move 2. In Move 2, at King Aylmer’s court, Horn is
accused by Fikenild of planning to kill the king and marry the
princess. In Move 3, at King Thurston’s court, he defeats an invader
threatening to kill the king and seize the princess, and then he
refuses the offer of the princess and kingdom. Finally, at the court
of King Aylmer once more, he saves the king and his daughter from
the very same character who has accused him of planning to kill the
king and marry the princess in Move 2. The outcome is that the
king’s son who has pretended to be a thrall without explanation wins
both his father’s kingdom and King Aylmer’s. I also find that the
accusation against Horn is reversed in Move 3, when Horn becomes
Goodmind and saves a king from an invader without accepting the
rewards of the princess and kingdom, and that it is reversed again
in Move 6, using the accuser Fikenild as the traitor. There is
another strategic relationship, too, between Moves 3 and 6. In Move
3, surrogates – King Thurston and his daughter – are used for the
reversal, while, in Move 6, the exact situation of the second move,
Aylmer’s court, is used, rather than surrogates. This pair of moves
appears in many of my plots, and seems to be about a building up of
power in the narrative.